A Brazilian investment firm has demanded that Neymar be imprisoned for five years for fraud and corruption.
According to BBC Sport, Neymar is facing charges in connection with his 2013 transfer from Santos to Barcelona. DIS, the investment company that owned 40% of the rights to the PSG star claims they did not receive a fair share of the fee because the player was sold for less than his worth at that time.
The investment company spent €2m to acquire a 40% percentage to Neymar’s rights when he was 17 years old. When Barcelona signed Neymar from Santos for €57.1million, €40m went to his parents and 40% of the remaining €17.1million went to DIS.
The investment company however argued that Neymar was not sold to the ‘highest bidder’ and that they should have received more money. Their lawyer Paulo Nasser said in a news conference (via BBC):
“Neymar’s rights have not been sold to the highest bidder. There were clubs that offered up to 60m euros.”
In addition to the five-year prison, DIS is also seeking prison sentences for the club presidents at that time Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, as well as a ‘149 million euro fine’.
The report states that the Spanish prosecutors are seeking a two-year prison sentence for Neymar as well as a ten-million-euro fine.
Baker McKenzie, the lawyers representing the Neymar family, claimed in a statement that Spanish courts “lack jurisdiction to prosecute the Neymar family and their company N&N” as it is something committed by Brazilian nationals outside Spanish territory.
They also stated that the Neymar family was charged with “corruption between private individuals,” which applies to “competition of products and services between companies,” despite the fact that Neymar “is not a service or a commodity.”
It concluded by claiming that the transfer from Santos to Barcelona had not broken any FIFA rules either.